


The flash is Blinding

by Gedry



Series: The Flash is Blinding [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Burlesque, Coffee Shops, M/M, artist Richard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:52:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13292343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gedry/pseuds/Gedry
Summary: Richard’s an artist, with a side job at a coffee shop as the sandwich maker.Or maybe, if he’s being really honest with himself this morning…it’s the other way around.





	1. Chapter 1

_The flash is blinding._

Richard slaps the alarm clock off the nightstand with a groan. 

It’s too damned early…and he’s fallen asleep in the middle of sketching again. 

Or trying to sketch again, he hasn’t been having much luck in that department recently. 

And by recently he means for over six months. 

He’s blocked, stuck, stymied by an invisible barrier of being completely uninspired. 

It sucks. 

He’s only halfway awake as he stumbles through his shower and drags on some clean clothing before heading out the door to walk his way through the hustle and bustle of the city to his job. 

Richard’s an artist, with a side job at a coffee shop as the sandwich maker. 

Or maybe, if he’s being really honest with himself this morning…it’s the other way around. 

“You’re late,” a voice calls out as he opens the door to Demolition and steps inside. Richard’s eyes snap over to where his boss is reclined in the booth in the corner, sipping a latte and using his smart phone. 

“Fuck you, Collins,” Richard spits before turning on his heel and slamming into the kitchen. It’s a calculated move on his part. Misha’s a weird guy. He’ll either laugh it off, fire him, or bring him a cup of coffee. 

You never know for sure. 

It’s hardly five minutes later when Richard turns around from setting up his station to find a perfectly brewed, lightly sugared, and heavily milk laden cup of coffee waiting for him. 

Okay…so today is a good day. 

He’s not sure how he feels about that. 

Frankly, Richard’s not sure how he feels about Misha at all. The other man’s taciturn, sometimes friendly and animated, and others withdrawn and flat out nasty. He’s intelligent, pushy, and has no respect for boundaries. But just when Richard has decided he hates the man more than anyone he has ever met in his entire life Misha will start feeding a homeless family every day until he can get them into the shelter, or take home the rat they find in the kitchen instead of snapping its head off in a trap. 

Sometimes he brings Richard coffee, made just how he likes it, without ever asking Richard his preferences for such things. 

But just when Richard feels the hard ball of hostility in his chest easing Misha blurts, “You look like shit. Are you sick? I can’t have you here coughing all over the food, you know? Who comes to work like that? Have you no respect for other people?”

He’s sorely tempted to pour the coffee down the front of Misha’s pink button up shirt. 

Instead Richard meets his gaze with a steady glare and promptly hurls the beverage, cup and all, into the trash. 

Misha’s eyes follow it with an arch of his eyebrow. When his mouth opens to comment, probably about the loss of the cup, Richard snaps, “Take it out of my paycheck and keep your mouth shut.” 

He catches just the hint of Misha’s smile as the other man turns and walks away. 

“Fucker,” Richard mutters to himself, wincing when he hears how pronounced his accent has gotten from him loosing his temper. Most of the time he can keep it under control, but there is something about Misha Collins that brings out the Tennessee twang in him. 

*****

“Jesus, Richard,” Jensen huffs. “Could you try and have a good time?” 

Richard rolls his eyes but does his best to put on his happy face. His friends are trying and he needs to at least give this a fighting chance of being a fun night out on the town. 

The thing about not being able to sketch is that it makes Richard miserable. It’s like a physical pain in chest that he can’t take his mind off of. He gets withdrawn, cranky, depressed. 

This is the longest he’s gone without being able to come up with anything and he’s starting to get scared he might never really draw again. 

So when Jensen and Jared offered to drag him out to a burlesque show he reluctantly agrees. He might be gay, but drawing the female form, with all of its softness and curves has always been a favorite of his. He figures maybe pastie covered boobs will inspire him to do…something. 

Though honestly, he’s tired and he would rather be in bed. 

By intermission Richard has to admit he’s starting to enjoy himself. The girls are beautiful, the variety act is talented and the drag queen doing the announcing is down right hysterical. There’s just one thing bugging him. 

The stage kitten looks familiar. 

It’s not like Richard gets a good look at the guy. He runs out in between acts and gathers up the clothes before scampering away to set up for the next one. But something about his dark hair and the turn of his mouth makes Richard swear he knows the guy. 

After all, their seats kind of suck but they aren’t that bad. 

Turns out the stage kitten go-go dances during intermission for tips, so Richard figures he can get a closer look at the guy as he shoves a few dollars down his pants. 

He crowds the stage and motions the man over. For a second he swears the guy hesitates before edging his way and turning his back crouching down. Sure, it gives Richard a great shot of his close to perfect ass, but what he wants is a close up of the dude’s face. So when the kitten spins to dance away Richard holds up another dollar, grinning. 

He swears the guy rolls his eyes, and it’s that motion more than anything else that lets Richard know where he knows the man from. 

“Misha?” he whispers as the kitten reaches out to take the dollar from him with shaky fingers. 

“Not now,” his boss whispers back before edging toward the opposite side of the stage to get more tips. 

Richard’s not really sure what happens the rest of the night, but he can’t take his eyes off of Misha. 

Jared drops him off at his apartment and he stumbles inside to a stack of blank paper and charcoal pencil.

He spends the rest of the night drawing and re-drawing the angles and plains of Misha’s face. 

When dawn breaks over the horizon Richard is rolling happily and possibly insanely around in the sketches of his apparently multifaceted supervisor. He’s too relieved to drawing to even care about what it means that it’s suddenly Misha he seems to be inspired by. 

*****

It’s the little things he notices in the weeks that follow. 

Misha usually has some eyeliner smudged under his lashes on Monday mornings. There is a specific set of women and a few men that he smiles sort of shyly at and always gives them coffee a size larger than what they pay for. After some sketching over lunches Richard realizes that if he doubles or triples the amount of make up those girls wear and add different hair they match the women he saw performing at the club that night. 

It’s like a whole secret society he’s suddenly involved in. 

“You’re sketching,” Misha comments as he slides back to the grill. 

“And?” Richard asks, he can’t help puffing up like there’s a challenge in Misha’s observation somehow. 

“I’m glad,” Misha answers with a slow nod of his head. “You’re happier when you sketch.” 

Richard blinks down at the grill like it holds the answers to everything he’s wondering about. 

He and Misha don’t…talk. 

They hurl insults, yell, ignore each other for days on end sometimes, maybe offer the occasional and highly denied peace offering when they each feel it is required…but they don’t talk. 

Not like this, not like they’re friends. 

“That and the back wall looks like shit and needs to be repainted. I was going to hire someone but the night shift swore you could do it justice. So since you’re all inspired again I figured I could put you to work.” 

Richard huffs a laugh out as he shakes his head. He turns to Misha with a scrunched up face of disbelief before leaning close and whispering, “How about I paint a mural of all your sexy dance moves?”

Misha flushes a little pink at the comment but he holds his ground and whispers back, “How about I pay you and you let me decide what you paint up there?”

Richard nods, it’s enough to know he isn’t expected to paint the whole back wall and cook the food. Plus it will be nice to have something of him here in this place he spends so much time. Misha’s kind of a shit decorator, even if he is a good businessman. 

He’s getting ready to clean up for the next shift, assuming their conversation is over when Misha ghosts one hand over the curve of one of his ass cheeks and presses in close to whisper, “And if you think those moves were sexy, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Then he’s walking away and Richard is trying to will away a very unwelcome hard on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time in the future...

“I wish you would stop doing that,” Richard complains as he peaks out over his sketch pad to where his partner is reclining on the other side of the bed.

Misha’s gloriously naked, completely uninhibited, and holding a camera so old it makes Richard look infantile. 

“You sketch me,” Misha shrugs. “I photograph you.”

Richard’s eyebrow twitches but he can’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. Misha has a point, he usually does. There’s something about the quirky way his lover’s mind functions that makes Richard, and everyone else for that matter, feel like they have to rush to keep up. 

But he’s glorious, tan and lean, spread out in their bed wearing nothing but his cocky grin and some smeared remnants of eyeliner from last nights performance. It had been one of Richard’s favorites. He even wears black wings and lights his tassels on fire at the end like an angel falling before Richard gets to hose him down with seltzer water and pull him back from his knees, soaked to the bone, in some semblance of redemption. 

The crowd goes crazy; it always takes everything Richard has to get them home without getting arrested for public indecency. 

But once they’re home, well indecent is how they like to live. 

Five years together hasn’t changed that much. 

There’s another flash, it snaps Richard back to the present. 

“Hey!” he complains. 

“You were introspective,” Misha smirks. “You know how hot I get when you’re like that.” 

“Really?” Richard teases. “Why don’t you put the camera down and show me.” 

He can finish the sketch later; he’s more interested in how things are developing right now.


End file.
